Alchemy
by The Prettiest Frog in the Pond
Summary: Even in the midst of battle, Edward can't help but marvel at what can be acheived though alchemy. Just a quick oneshot, looking at alchemy itself and what it does.


_Based on something Kimbley said/did when turning Al into a bomb (Just before Scar changed him into part of the circle for the Philosopher's stone)._

A projectile was rushing towards him. Edward leapt over a low dry stone wall, knowing that the soft rock he hid behind would do him no good. It was only a matter of seconds before the thing hit him; he had to act fast.

Edward did not clap his hands, but still, he reached out for the familiar crackling energy that was alchemy. He did not want to transmute something- not yet.

He placed his hands on the wall, and _felt_, in a way that was impossible to describe, the different elements it was made of. Instinctively, he knew, _knew_, that that bit, just there, _that_ was calcium, and that, oh, _that_ was carbon, and... That, that right there, _that_ was oxygen. He knew. He could tell. This... it was limestone, his brain supplied. But he didn't need to know what it was- only what elements he had available.

Any skilled alchemist could do it. If one could reach into something, break the bonds between its atoms and form new ones, reshaping it, then why could they not look at what the atoms were? Newcomers to alchemy would maybe find it difficult, but Ed had been doing Alchemy since he first learnt to read. He had cut his teeth on an old hardback copy of _Introduction to Alchemy_. Ed was a prodigy, even _before_ he saw the truth. He would've passed the state alchemist exam even without having to see the gate first, albeit with a little more effort. Reaching into something, sending out alchemic power without actually transmuting something, that was easy. It only took a few weeks of practice. He pulled his hands away, and clapped them, slapping both hands back against the wall almost instantly.

He reshaped it. He needed something far harder than mere limestone to protect him now.

He forced the oxygen out into the air, and pulled the calcium away from the carbon, pushed it into the ground. He concentrated, forced the carbon to form the correct bonds, the correct structure...

Carbon was so versatile. It could be as soft as graphite, or as hard as diamond...

Diamond, thought Edward with a grin. Hardest naturally occurring substance known to man. Perfect.

The carbon changed. Edward concentrated: he needed to form the correct bonds, the correct structure, or he'd be sat behind a shield of graphite. Performing alchemy was always quite surreal, he felt: you could see what was going on around you, yes, but on some higher level, you were above what was actually happening, twisting atoms to your will, immersed in the physics and chemistry of changing matter. While a transmutation might take barely seconds in reality, in the alchemist's mind, it seemed to take hours while said alchemist revelled in the complexity of the atomic structure as he or she broke it apart and rebuilt it.

The carbon atoms settled happily into their new structure, the structure of sparkling, solid diamond. The projectile being fired at Edward smashed against it, but it stood firm. After the crash there as a sudden quiet, and the noise of metal and flesh slamming together filled the room with a resounding _clap_.

He slammed his hands to the floor, and a couple of hundred meters away, the one who had thrown the projectile was impaled on a stone spike. He howled in rage and pain, and Edward smiled grimly to himself, ducking out from behind his shimmering shield to rejoin the fight.

From a distance, an older alchemist observed the transmutation approvingly. Love the boy or hate him, you couldn't deny that he was an excellent alchemist. And then he turned his eyes back to the fight.

Edward reached out almost blindly for the alchemic energy that ran through him, and searched through the elements in the ground that would be of use to him. With a grin he located iron and more carbon: two things he could easily fuse together to make cold, hard steel. He pulled them, pushed them together, feeling the familiar tingle of alchemy rush through him. Even in the heat of battle, he couldn't help but marvel at the sheer beauty of alchemy, of the science he had immersed himself in since he was a child.

He was brought back to reality as something whistled past his ear- a near miss. And so, with some regret, he focused once more completely on the battle at hand.

Edward clapped his hands, and the battle raged on.


End file.
